


Breathe

by fairietailed



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, This is all your fault, also im sorry jj, thanks mark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 21:17:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7523455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairietailed/pseuds/fairietailed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was supposed to be easy.</p>
<p>In and out, off the planet in a half hour tops, that’s what Corran had said.</p>
<p>Half an hour. Half an hour.</p>
<p>Half an hour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> I'm only a little bit sorry

It was supposed to be easy.

In and out, off the planet in a half hour tops, that’s what Corran had said.

Half an hour. Half an hour.

Half an hour.

Lance keeps repeating it in his mind like a mantra, cursing Corran and the Galra soldiers that caught them and the universe itself.

He needs to get out of here.

He needs to run, needs to find help and the others, needs to find Blue and be useful and  _ do _ something-

He needs to breathe.

Lance focuses his attention on the paladin in front of him. He’s cold, choking, covered in red that isn’t from his suit with his bayard hanging limp from his arms and-

He needs to breathe.

Keith needs to breathe.

_ Please _ , Lance prays as he practically slams his hands on Keith’s chest,  _ let him breathe _ .

And he does, for a split second, coughing and choking and screaming out as his eyes fly open and his hand grips his bayard, swinging and nearly taking Lance’s arm off in the process.

“Keith!”

He calms, blinking fast and breathing sporadic, and he grips Lance’s arm a bit tighter in his newfound panic. Lance reaches down, checks his pulse, finds it’s beating half a tick slower than normal, panics.

Breathe.

Breathe.

“Breathe.”

Keith chokes instead, and Lance resists the urge to punch his chest a second time.

“We need to get out of here, now.” He says, voice cracking. He hopes Keith doesn’t notice. “We need to find the others.”

“I can’t...” Keith’s voice is strained, broken, and he wheezes a bit as he attempts to lay down. “Can’t move. Hurts. Not going.”

“Stop it,” Lace chokes, knows this time Keith hears it. “Stop. We’re getting you out of here.”

“I don’t want...” Keith takes another breath. “Don’t want to walk.”

“Then don’t.”

Lance stands, looking out for enemy soldiers. He finds none and turns back to Keith, bending down to tug on his arm and pull his torso off of the ground.

Keith lets out a whimper, and Lance nearly drops him.

But he heaves him into his arms instead, carrying him bridal style down the corridor as he breaks into a run, trying his best not to shake Keith too much as he does. His lungs burn. His legs feel broken. His head pounds. He’s so tired. So tired.

_ So tired. _

He ignores it, makes it three hangars down before he collapses behind a Galran ship, dropping Keith to the floor beside him and immediately pulling off his helmet. Keith’s hair sticks to his forehead, a gash running under his bangs and leaving a trail of blood falling down into his eyes.

“What even happened to you?” Lance asks, though he already knows.

He already knows.

Every time he closes his eyes he can see it -- he can see the way that Keith call out for him, pushing him out of the way of a soldier he hadn’t seen coming. He can see the sword, can see the blood, can hear Keith’s screams as it slices into his torso.

He can see the way his body crumbled.

He can see how it’s entirely his fault.

So he focuses instead on taking off Keith’s armor. Focuses on exposing the wound and pushing the sounds of Keith’s cries out of his mind as he rips his underarmor open at an angle that hopefully doesn’t bring more pain than is necessary.

It’s big.

Too big. Too big to fix, especially with no gause, no bandages, nothing to cover the open wound with besides the spandex that he’s just torn off of Keith’s uniform, but he uses it anyway. He presses it down, hard, and Keith yells, lets out a cry that Lance will spend the rest of his days trying to forget.

He cries, sobs, hiccups out Lance’s name as he clings to his armor, begs him to stop, to stop, to  _ please stop- _

Lance does his best to tune him out. Tries to focus on the intercom in his helmet, hopes he can reach one of the other paladins.

There’s only silence.

Silence save for Keith’s cries, his tears falling into his ears and getting lost in his hair, eyes rimmed with red, cheeks covered in red, stomach dripping with red, red, red,  _ red, so much red- _

There’s nothing but red.

It covers Keith’s side, blooming like a flower as it spreads across his abdomen and drips onto the floor beside Lance’s knees. He coughs, and it falls down his chin and pools along the lines of his collarbones. His cheeks are covered, smeared, as if he had been attempting to wipe it clean with no progress except for the neat lines of white that are left washed clean from his tears.

So many tears.

“Lance.”

He chokes on the name, and Lance realizes that he can’t see straight. Everything is blurry, so blurry, and as he wipes at his eyes he can feel that they’re wet.

“I’m fine,” Lance says. His voice cracks a third time. “You’re fine.”

“I’m not,” Keith laughs, though it sounds more like a breath of air. “I’m not. You need... Go.”

“Shut up.”

Lance presses down on the wound a bit more and Keith lets out a cry of pain. Lance hesitates, wonders if he should stop.

The blood from the wound seeps onto his hands, and he decides not to.

“Lance.”

It comes out a bit more forceful this time, panicked and a bit angry. Lance looks up, and Keith grips the front panel of his armor to pull him close.

“Go.”

Lance pulls back as if he’d been burned.

“No! What are you even talking about dude? I’m not leaving you until someone comes to help. We’re going to get you to a healing pod. You’ll be fine, people survive stuff like this all the tim-”

Keith tugs on his armor again, frowning.

“Go. You need to leave... Before they come back.”

Lance becomes angry, sees as much red as there is scattered along Keith’s body. He presses down harder on the wound, and Keith hisses as he falls back into silence.

“I’m not leaving you.”

Keith lets out another forced laugh, though this one is more of a wheeze.

“I’m not going with you.”

“You can if I carry you. Maybe we can make it to a ship-”

“I’m not... going to make it.”

The words hit Lance like a ton of bricks.

“You can’t die, though. You can’t. That’s not supposed to happen.”

Keith wheezes again.

“Things happen Lance. You need to find Blue.”

“No!” Lance wipes more tears, a swipe of blood appearing on his cheek. “That’s not going to happen. We’re Lance and Keith. Rivals. Neck-and-neck. I’m always chasing after you. Always right behind you. Right beside you, I thought. But I’m.. No, I just... I’m not ready to be alone. I’m not good enough. I’m not... I’m not enough by myself. You make me better. You make me want to be better.”

Keith reaches out, smiles, places a hand on the back of Lance’s neck. Threads his fingers through his hair, pulls him down to kiss him.

It’s short, tastes like rusted metal and salt, but Lance pretends they’re home, on Earth, under the palm trees that line the beach by his house. He pretends that they’re happy, that they’re safe, that they’re going to be okay.

That Keith is going to be okay.

It doesn’t last long enough.

Keith pulls back, smiles, tears falling down his cheeks and stopping on Lance’s wrist as he cradles Keith’s head in his hands.

“You’re enough. You’ve always been enough.”

Keith closes his eyes, and Lance’s world goes black.


End file.
